The 35-year-old has been dropped from tomorrow’s League One trip to Gillingham after asking to leave Rovers, only to see a return to Lancashire fall through before the transfer window closed on Tuesday.

The former Manchester United midfielder will now hold talks about a move, when the loan window re-opens next week, with Wigan Athletic touted as a likely destination.

But Dickov – who denied any “conspiracy theories” of a fall-out behind the scenes – said Wellens’s desire to return to the north west was for personal reasons, not more cash.

“He won’t be involved at the weekend,” said Dickov. “I have made that decision, and spoke to Richie last night.

“There are obviously conspiracy theories about what’s happened, but there is certainly no problem between me and Richie, or Richie and the club, I want to stress that.

“Richie last week came to see me because he thought there was a move that was a 110 per cent on that was going to benefit him. Not for personal reasons, but for reasons he wanted to be closer to home. It wasn’t because he wanted to go and get more money or anything like that.

“Unfortunately he got let down on the move. The possibility now, with the loan window re-opening next week, is that he is still looking for a club closer to home.

“With that in mind, I have come to the conclusion that until anything happens he won’t be involved in the first-team squad.

“We have a group here which is fully committed, and if Richie is looking to go elsewhere – and I mean this in the nicest way – his focus is not going to be 100 per cent here.

“We want players that are. He was fine with that, he understands I have to make a stance on it,” added Dickov.

Dickov did sign Cameron Stewart and Oscar Gobern, but missed out on a third deal, which he hopes can be completed next week.

“We are hopeful we will have one in next week,” he said. “We had targets in Cameron, Oscar and another one. We managed to get two in, but the reason we didn’t get the other one in was circumstances at other clubs.”